Audience Questions

Audience QuestionsHour 1

David works for a zoo and wants to set up music that would play through the PA with announcements that would be timed throughout the day. He wants it to be automted. Leo says it's an easy thing to do. An iPod Touch or a Google Nexus 7 with an Alarm app could do it. Most alarm apps will allow him to create music playlists. He'll just have to be sure alarms don't turn off.

In the chatroom, Effin_dunn worked at the LA Zoo and they did something similar. So Leo recommends they contact the LA Zoo and collaborate on a solution.

Bill used to have a trial version of Network Magic, but since learned that it's been discontinued. He was wondering if there was a similar program he could get that would do the same thing. Leo says that Network Magic was needed when networking was newer, and setting up these networks was much more complex. The truth is, programs like these aren't really needed anymore, because routers are easier to set up now. Leo recommends just following the instructions that come with the router, and leaving it at that.

There are some basic security settings he should change or enable, however:

Turn on WPA encryption, or WPA2 if the router supports it.

This will prevent people from gaining access to his network.

Turn off WPS.

This is the "push button" encryption feature that some routers provide, and it's not very secure.

Turn off UPnP.

This is universal plug'n'play, which has some serious security vulnerabilities that had been uncovered.

Change the name of the router to something other than the default.

This should be something he knows, that doesn't encourage people to want to join it.

Choose a memorable administrative password.

It doesn't have to be difficult, but something other than the default.

Steve wants an inexpensive MP3 player just for listening to podcasts. Leo recommends the Sandisk Sansa. It's a small, clip-on mp3 that comes in 2, 4, and 8GB options and would be ideal for this. Of course, most people just use iPods and iPhones because it's easier. However, if Steve can sync his podcasts with the computer, this will do just fine.

John wants to know how long companies can keep his email address? He's concerned about signing up for trial offers, and the company keeping his address. Leo says companies can keep email addresses as long as they want. He also says that anything after six months is considered abandoned and then anyone can access it. John should assume when he signs up that no one will get rid of the email because it's all used for marking. It's really not anything to worry too much about, though.

Michelle's daughter has an old 2004 Dell desktop and the internet is really slow. She'd like to transfer her music to the new Dell computer she has. Leo says that the Internet is slow because the computer is slow. Leo advises just getting an external hard drive or thumb drive and just moving the data over to the new computer. Then she can import the music into iTunes with no trouble. If for some reason she needs Music Match on the new computer to access those files, OldApps.com has the newest version of Music Match, which is from 2006.

The chatroom suggests this Apple tech note for moving music from Music Match to iTunes.

Leo says he doesn't think they'll release a MacBook Air with Retina display because of speed and battery life issues. The good news is that the new MacBook Air will offer the Intel Haswell chip with double the battery life -- 12 hours for the 13" model. The graphics will be better as well. Leo also suspects that there will be a new MacBook Pro within a few months. So Leo advises waiting just a little longer. It just comes down to what he needs and wants, though.

Luce has an iPhone, forgot the passcode, and now it's locked at the lock screen. Leo says that's happened to him. If it was set to erase the phone after 10 attempts, then she's lost the data. Hopefully the data hasn't been erased. If iCloud was turned on, then the data will be backed up.

Leo advises going to the Apple Store to beg for help. Apple may not want to help because they won't know if she's malicious or not. If she can prove it's hers, then they may be willing. If there's a way, the genius should know.

The chatroom offers this technote on if a device is disabled after entering wrong passcode. It outlines connecting to iTunes, enter the correct passcode, and see if iTunes unlocks it.

Audience QuestionsHour 3

Richard lives in an area that doesn't give him either broadband or cellphone coverage, and is wondering if satellite internet is a viable option. Leo says if it's all he can get, then that's the only option. The equipment is expensive, though, and the upload speed is very slow. There's latency that's pretty bad so gaming and VOiP such as Skype would be an issue. There's also serious bandwidth caps. If that's not important, then it'll work. Leo recommends Exede, also known as WildBlue.

Google is working on something called Project Loon, where the goal is to make internet access available through giant balloons flying around the globe. Leo wonders if it's an April Fool's joke holdover because that's crazy! Apparently they're already doing this in Africa, though.

Wyatt is a gamer, a huge XBox fan, and he's pretty upset with the new draconian used game policy that the XBox One will have. He believes it'll cause faithful fans like him go to Playstation which has no such restrictions. Leo says it's ridiculous and amounts to Microsoft and game publishers trying to get as much money as possible out of their fans. Microsoft is gambling it won't matter with the majority of those who buy it, and they may be right. Especially when the Playstation 4 is $100 less (of course, it doesn't come with a Kinect-like feature either). Also, optical media is going away. There's really no need to place this restriction on gamers when the market is moving towards online purchasing and downloading of games.

Jim is collaborating on a book and he photos that need to be a TIFF file. Leo says that TIFF is an uncompressed image format. It's a very high resolution image and it's preferable when printing. He can scan them that way as well. He can use Irfanview to convert them.

This Week in Tech News

Last week, Chinese hackers targeted GreatFire.org in a DDoS attack, and now are attacking GitHub. DDoS stands for "Distributed Denial of Service," and this attack brings down a website by hitting it with lots of bogus requests from thousands or even tens of thousands of computers distributed all over the world. GreatFire.org was spending $30,000 a day in bandwidth trying to keep up with the excess traffic.

The way they are getting this to be a distributed attack is by commandeering users of Baidu, a popular search engine in China.

ToyTalk, a company that creates conversational characters for kids, is working on a Wi-Fi Barbie Doll that can analyze a child's speech and produce relevant responses. This will actually be able to talk to kids. This means that increasingly, children will be expecting their devices to talk back to them. This all started with Apple's Siri and Google Now, along with Microsoft's Cortana, which all respond to you.

ToyTalk says that 'Hello Barbie,' coming out this Fall, will have thousands of things to say and kids will be able to talk to her for hours.

Although they promised customers that they would protect private information, Radio Shack has announced that they will be selling off customer information as part of the Fire Sale portion of their Bankruptcy. State governments and even AT&T have announced lawsuits to stop it. AT&T says that the privacy information should remain confidential through the sale and that Radio Shack should only sell to companies in the same business. But the lesson is clear, if you gave Radio Shack your information, they're now considering it an "asset." So much for privacy policies.

Twitter launched Periscope this week, a direct competitor to Meerkat in the live streaming space. Leo likes Meerkat better, but it's a growing new segment of online video streaming. Leo says it's nothing really new, live streaming has been going on for years. But these two apps have become wildly popular.

In the latest "Pwn2Own" hacking competition, a Korean hacker was able to crack secured versions of all the latest browsers. He not only took home a quarter million dollars, but also the laptops that the browsers and operating systems were installed on. Leo says that all these hackers save up exploits all year long in order to Pwn2Own. And a lone security researcher was able to own IE11, Chrome, and Safari, and he took the whole thing. All the browsers were 64 bit too. This was the largest payout in the history of the competition.

Leo says that companies who are concerned about these flaws are funding competitions like this. Leo understands the idea, but he's not sure it's a wise one, since they find and keep the exploits without telling anyone. Meanwhile, Adobe Reader and Flash player were hacked as well. There were 5 flaws in Windows, 4 flaws in I.E. 11, 2 in Safari and 1 in OS X.